Oh my word. I’m pretty sure that these hills are not natural. We saw a 28% hill today and thought ‘bugger that for a game of soldiers’ and headed off into some woods instead. Didn’t even want to walk up the freaking thing.

Anyway. Digressing and getting right ahead of myself.
We’ve been doing a fair bit of riding, I’ve been up to Wenfordbridge twice, ridden from home to Padstow (had ice cream) ridden back home (cup of tea) then headed off to Wenfordbridge (the other end of the trail) and home just the once, generally pootled about, got muddy, got wet, got soaked and all in all have been having a good time. This semi-retirement is quite fun but I really should find some sort of job at some point.

Today we decided to follow a route that a neighbour said about, ride up to Burlawn and then to Bishop Woods and home via the Camel Trail. She said it was a nice little pootle and would take at least an hour. We were thinking a nice little 10-12 mile route. Hmm

Straight out of the gate – well turned right at the cinema 100 yards down – we started to climb. Not too bad at first and I stopped at a false flat to wait for Ken. We climbed some more and stopped at another false flat as Kenn said he saw goldfish in the wild. I thought that he said Goldfinch and thought ‘big fat hairy deal’, we see Goldfinches all the time. No, he said, deffo goldfish. I went back to where he was pointing and there were goldfish, in an old horse trough fed by a stream, half way up a Cornish hill, just outside of Wadebridge. Not the greatest pic but I didn’t have a camera, just a phone. We had a nice breather here, looking at the goldfish and marvelling at the clarity of the water. A little bit further up, we saw a stream being diverted by a pipe, it looked nice so we took another snap with the phone.

We kept climbing and climbing and finally got to Burlawn. Thank God. Naturally there were lots of high hedges so we couldn’t seen down and photographed Wadebridge from the dizzy heights of 107m up. We rode along a little further and took a pic of the road as it went down again. Down!! We were only just flaming up!
I would say ‘Wheeeeeeeee’ but it was twisty, turny, muddy, wet – running water going down the road wet – and there was a fair bit of traffic coming up it and it was very steep. I think that I need new brake pads on Eric as I had my brakes pretty much full on and still travelling faster than I would really have liked. We stopped for a chat with a 4×4 driver who had pulled over to wait for us to pass down the hill. Nice lady with bikes on her towbar rack. Then we got to the bottom of the hill, through the ford and then decided to head through the woods.

28 freaking per cent up.
The woods were looking good to us. We’ll go this way another day and walk up this bloody hill and see what’s up there and is it worth it. We decided on the less ‘uppy’ woods route.

Much more sensible. We rattled our way though the woods, found a road and followed that to a bridge and could see the Camel Trail beneath it. Kenn decided that enough was enough and that we were off home. Poor thing. Climbing from the off did for him a bit, I think.https://www.strava.com/activities/530900444
Not 10-12 miles at all, not even 6!

More exploring tomorrow for me while he’s dialysing. Weather looks good so I’ll get out for a ride.

Raff

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About RosieRosie

RosieRosie is a woman of a 'certain age' - whatever the hell that is supposed to mean, known. I feel about 26. I have no idea what I look like as some older woman keeps getting in the way when I look in the mirror. Technically separated now and I'm just waiting for him to move out into his own place.
I have a proper wanderlust and have finally moved - using the housing exchange system from - where I started in Inverness, down to Cornwall and back up to the Flatlands and Big Sky Country. It's taken since September 2011, when I left Inverness until May 2017 to get to somewhere that I really like. That's not too shoddy with a swap here and a swap there, saving up again for each move. Not ruling out going home to Norfolk if necessary. Time will tell. For now my mates are just a 90 minute or so, drive down the road.
I love my bikes, I love my dogs and I love guitars. They all keep my busy.

2 Responses to Hills! Blooming Hills!

Well done for leaving the 28% alone for the moment Raff… I went on a route to Launceston in the back lanes in the car a couple days ago and was making mental notes..’Nope, remember not to cycle this way…’